


Unmasked

by VampireBait



Category: Dice Camera Action
Genre: F/M, Wafflecrew - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-04
Updated: 2019-04-04
Packaged: 2020-01-04 16:45:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18347669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VampireBait/pseuds/VampireBait
Summary: Spoilers  for DCA ep 137Evelyn keeps so much hidden inside after that harsh moment with Jarlaxle Paultin sees the mask slip.





	Unmasked

Paultin lay in the dark Wafflehaus. After the latest explosion buried his room he’d settled himself in the Den rather than share Strix’s room with Strix and Diath. 

Evelyn usually flittered between the two, or chose to stay with the kids at least until the third and fourth floors were rebuilt. 

This late at night the house should have been silent. Instead, he lay staring at the ceiling, listening to the small despairing sobs coming from the taproom.

It was a sound he’d heard only once, maybe twice, if he really wanted to dig up bad memories. But in the end, it was a sound, and a cry, that did not belong in this world. 

Not from Evelyn.

Paultin thought back on what had caused it, guilt twisting his stomach as he remembered his harsh, uncaring, impatience, as they’d stood in Jarlaxle’s dining room. 

He’d wanted so badly for Evelyn to see what that Drow was. To know he was using her...now she knew.

Evelyn’s mask had slipped only a handful of times. That was always going to happen. 

Shock, hurt or scare her enough and it would slip just a little before she forced that smile back into place.

She was careful of it, she’d worn it so long that she’d convinced herself it was the real her, but Paultin knew. 

It had taken him too long to see it. 

Had taken her preparing for her own death that had finally, brutally made him truely see her for the first time.

They’d travelled and lived together enough that Paultin could see the edges around it now. He knew at a glance her tells, the slight change to her voice, even the flash of her eyes. If you knew what to look for it was so painfully easy to see.

There, on Jarlaxle’s ship he’d been so wrapped up in his own pissing contest with the elf he hadn’t realised what was happening until he heard her voice.

“Ah...I should have known.” Paultin turned, a hundred smart arsed comments dying the moment he saw her face.

The mask was gone, she stood there, meeting the eyes of the man she might have come to love. The man she was starting to think just might love her and she broke a little bit more before Paultin’s eyes.

“I-I guess it was silly of me to think that you actually wanted to spend anytime getting to know me, or talking about - even just talking about Lathander. I get it. You want me to do something for you. That’s...I mean let’s be honest that’s what everbody wants right?”

“That is true.”

“And...and I should have known better...”

“Yes, you should have.”

Paultin stood frozen, his eyes locked on Evelyn watching the crack widen with each confirmation. He’d seen her bared like this once before. High above Citadel Akbar. She’d thought she was alone. He’d followed her and watched as she sat crying looking up at a night sky far from Waterdeep. 

She’d been preparing to die then. It had taken that much for the mask to drop, back then.

He saw it gone again now and wondered at how much pain she’d been holding so it would slip so much easier now.

Another quiet sob echoed across the dark hallway between the taproom and the den where Paultin lay.

Slowly, he got to his feet and crossed the room. From the doorway he could see the small woman sitting at the bar. 

Even in despair she seemed to glow with a radience that defied the night around them. 

He took one unguarded selfish moment to study her, admiring the way her soft curls brushed the top of her shoulders bare but for the thin straps of her small nightdress. 

He could see the floural vines of Lathander’s boon glimmering white on her pale arms. 

Paultin had to admit he’d never seen anything more beautiful and ethereal than Evelyn Marthain.

She didn’t seem to notice him as he stepped through the taproom door and approached the bar on bare feet. Her head was in her hands, her shoulders shaking with the violence of her tears. She let out a soft whimper that almost doubled him over as he finally reached her side.

Evelyn jumped in surprise as Paultin pulled out the stool next to her. He carefully avoided looking her eyes, instead staring straight ahead at the bottles on the shelves behind the bar. 

She settled after a moment. He noted that where with Strix or Diath she would have forced the mask back into place immediately, she didn’t with him. He didn’t know what that meant but it was something.

Paultin said nothing. Slowly he lifted the panpipes she’d given him that night under the stars, and he began very softly to play her favourite hymn.

There, in the darkness of the taproom his music drifted around them both. Memories of the last time they’d done this - the kiss she’d stolen when she thought she wouldn’t live to see another night - hung between them.

Slowly as he felt her posture change. Paultin dared to look at her face at last. Her eyes were closed, head tilted slightly as though basking in something warm as she listened to him play. Her cheeks were damp, her eyes red from crying.

Gently he shuffled closer and reached out with his free hand drawing her close. Evelyn let him, settling with her back against his chest and her head resting back against his shoulder. He gave her the smallest squeeze and continued to play. If more tears fell he pretended not to notice.

She stayed with him in the taproom for the night, curled up against him as she used to when they were camped out on an adventure somewhere. 

Paultin lay listening to her breathing softly. 

Another wall between them had been torn down tonight. He’d gained a new understanding of the woman laying next to him. There was always more to learn, depths to see, but she kept herself hidden behind that blinding wall of light.

One day he’d finally step through that last shining shield and find the real her unmasked there, waiting for him.


End file.
